


Dead Time II: ...The Hand That Holds You Down

by Viridian5



Series: Tangled String [3]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Action/Adventure, Clones, Drama, Episode Related, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1998-02-28
Updated: 1998-02-28
Packaged: 2017-10-02 07:59:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viridian5/pseuds/Viridian5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trouble follows Krycek to the beach house and puts everyone in mortal danger.  Doped up and on the run, Mulder finally confronts his feelings for Krycek. <i>XF</i>/<i>Kalifornia</i>/<i>Red Shoe Diaries</i> crossover.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dead Time II: ...The Hand That Holds You Down

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for every Krycek episode.
> 
> Jake Fleiss and Stella by Zalman King. Brian, Carrie, Adele, and Early Grayce courtesy of Dominic Sena. All things from _The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996)_ from Edward R. Pressman and New Line Cinema. Dark Angel/Elizabeth Walker/Alice Pryor/Serafine Fitzwalter is mine.
> 
> The song fragments from Serafine belong to, in order: "Bloodletting (The Vampire Song)" by Concrete Blonde, "Ribbons" by Sisters of Mercy, "Not My Idea" by Garbage, "Glory Box" by Portishead, "Trigger For Happiness" by Machines of Loving Grace, the _Pinky and the Brain_ theme song, one of the Joel versions of the _Mystery Science Theater 3000_ theme song, and "Aenima" by Tool.
> 
> Thanks to Small Woodinat Creature for proofreading, fact-checking, and the colorful phone bank quote (you'll know it when you see it).
> 
> This story picks up a few months after "A Tangled String of Blood and Entropy." You don't have to read "A Tangled String..." to make sense of this, but it wouldn't hurt.

_"Wake from your dreams  
The drying of your tears  
Today we escape  
We escape_

_Pack and get dressed  
Before your father hears us  
Before all hell breaks loose_

_Breathe keep breathing  
Don't lose your nerve  
Breathe keep breathing  
I can't do this alone...."_  
  -- "Exit Music (For a Film)" by Radiohead  
==========================================

"We don't have time for that. They'll be coming back for Mulder soon," Krycek said.

Serafine shouted back into the house, "Bri, we have trouble," and picked up a pack and a rifle hidden behind the door. To Krycek she said, "And how would we know that?"

"I'm the one who convinced them not to send Mulder on to their breaker. What I've done saved his life and sanity. This doesn't sound very good, I know, but I convinced them that if they sent Mulder here you would be here and they would have a chance at nabbing you. Of course, I know you well enough to know that you would fight anyone to the death before letting that happen and probably win if I gave you advanced warning."

"So you led them to the beach house, you little shit," she snarled. He stepped back. "I got the Mangler off your tail permanently in Seattle. How many people will I have to kill this time?"

"I don't know yet." He looked back toward the road as a multitude of lights started coming closer.

"Apparently they trusted you about as far as they should have."

Brian poked his head out the door. "What's up?"

"Ratboy had a great plan but ended up leading the bad guys to your house." Serafine cut off Krycek's protests with a venomous look. "Brian, get your pack and Mulder. You, Mulder, and Ratboy will go to Point B. Give Douglas a gun and tell him to take himself, Jake, and Stella to the bathroom with the phone to call your guardians for help. Give Jake their phone number. They'll get here faster than Jake's guardians would. If Krycek's playmates see the people they want running out maybe they won't check the house. They don't know about Douglas and Jake, do they?" she asked Krycek.

"Not from me, and they're not my playmates. I don't always have much choice in my allies. Who the hell is Douglas anyway? Wait, is he one of the people you liberated from England? Maybe he can help."

"Douglas isn't a combatant."

"You had a ward filled with hardcase assassins and fixers, and you chose a non-combatant to take home with you?"

"I'm the last person you want to pick a fight with. Brian, move! Besides, Alexei, you sent people after Mulder when he's too doped up to fight his way out of a paper bag, so don't talk to me about bad decisions. Not that he's much better fully sober but at least then he has a good aim with a gun if he manages not to lose the thing somewhere." She went utterly still, took aim with her rifle, and started to blow out the tires on the oncoming cars then started to pick off the people inside the cars. Krycek just stared. "Couldn't you at least have waited until we finished dinner?"

Brian, wearing his own backpack and carrying a gun, pulled Mulder out the door. "Where will you be, Sera?"

"I'll draw their fire as best I can. If I'm not out here, I'll be at Point D. Oh good, some of the car people have seen you. That may save Jake and Douglas. Now start running away from the house and I'll do the same. You too, Alex. Follow Brian. Go! "

Brian took the lead with Krycek and then Mulder following. In the moonlight, Mulder noticed that Krycek moved with a fluid grace only slightly marred by the less graceful artificial arm. Even as Mulder felt a stab of guilt, he thought that Krycek could survive and finally triumph over anything. Rats had a talent for survival. Not that Brian had no grace; Brian moved with an athletic power coupled with a total sureness of step and intensity of purpose. He seemed to know exactly where to place each foot on the damp, shifting sand even in the near- darkness. In these dangerous situations, he even crackled with an energy similar to Krycek's. He just lacked Krycek's total animal suppleness.

Point B, Point D? Mulder had a sudden vision of Serafine and Brian investigating every inch of the beach looking for hideouts and making plans in case of attack. It would make him laugh if he hadn't known that to be the truth. And who was he to say, as they ran leaving killers and the explosive sound of gunfire behind them, that they were insane and paranoid when those investigations and plans may now save all their lives?

Brian stopped at the edge of a crumbling sea wall and motioned them into a large, dark hole in the wall. Mulder didn't like the look of it but decided that this was hardly the time to decide he didn't trust Brian's judgment and crawled in. When Krycek hesitated, Mulder pulled him in. Krycek landed on him, and Mulder pulled him deeper into the darkness.

A sudden thunderous noise overhead made Brian look up. "Shit, they're sending helicopters after us? Who the hell were you involved with?" Brian then plunged into the hole after them.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Serafine reloaded and started to shoot again, trying to keep them away from the house, but they kept coming. Then she heard the helicopters and saw the searchlights behind her moments before they started to shoot at her too. She had to abandon her defense of the house, Brian's home, had to abandon Jake and Douglas and hope that no one thought to check the house or if they did that Jake and Douglas could defend themselves or that the guardians arrived in time to save the day.

As she ran, still shooting, she fantasized about what she would do to Alex when she caught up with him again. "The last thing you hear will be the snapping of your vertebrae one... by... one," she muttered to herself, quoting an old G.I. Joe cartoon. It worried her that such ephemera kept bouncing to the top of her skull now when she should be focused on the task at hand. Something was wrong.

The sand kicked up by bullets striking the beach stung her legs even through the denim and leather. She dodged as best she could without being able to look up. She could hurt herself badly if she landed a foot wrong on the loose sand. She aimed up and shot once in a while. One time she heard a body hit the sand.

Then she felt the first lightning strike at the base of her head. Then again behind her left eye. Then the other three started to pound as well. All thought fled under the agony as they whipped her. If they would only pound all at the same time, the same beat, it wouldn't be so bad. Seizures started to ripple through her body. She screamed at the pain and the knowledge of what was going on. Four days without sleep, pushing her body as far as it would go, had finally left its mark. The cerebral implants were still firing but the more fragile flesh couldn't obey them any further. She could almost smell the brain matter frying.

She plunged into the space under the rocks in a barely controlled fall at Point D. She had once found the Project's files on the disection of the others of her kind. The scientists had pulled five impenetrable metal implants out of their brains. The scarring on the brain matter around those implants suggested that things had extended out into the surrounding flesh but those extensions had retracted into the implants and sealed over, perhaps at the deaths of the hosts. Smart aliens. The Project couldn't crack the metal open or learn anything from them. A CAT scan had revealed five similar non-organic dead zones in Serafine's own skull.

This kind of fit had happened to her once before, seven years ago. She had prayed this would never happen again.

She writhed in her small hole and tried to marshal the thought necessary to figure out what to do next.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Jake clutched the phone so hard his hand shook. "They'll be right over. They got so excited when they heard about the helicopters. Maybe they're militia."

"What?" Douglas asked.

"Oh, I'm sorry. It would take too long to explain the American militia movement."

"How long for them to arrive?"

"Fifteen minutes."

Douglas decided that given a choice between being back in England facing a slow mind death or sitting in a tub with another man and a dog while holding a gun and praying that the men outside wouldn't come in to kill him, he would still rather be here. It was a good thing Brian had such a big tub.

Jake looked as if he would explode from anxiety soon, and Douglas realized, to his great surprise, that of the two of them he was the better suited to defending their lives. He held a gun in his hand again and couldn't help remembering the last time. He had only used it as threat, not as a killing weapon. He might be forced now to kill someone to save Jake and himself the way he had failed to save Aissa.

She had been so sweet and so innocent, yet she had such strength and courage, risking her life for him over and over. He remembered being held back, helpless, as her body hit the end of the rope's line and the noose snapped her neck. Before that he had been helpless to stop her regression. If she hadn't died, she would have slowly transformed back to an animal, but at least she would still live.

Or maybe not. Douglas' written report had left out the location of the island but his interrogation under truth serum had revealed it. It turned out that the contract he had signed when the UN hired him had signed more than a few of his rights away. He wondered if the regressed denizens of the island had escaped the purifying hand of the UN. He'd been helpless to stop that too, bound and drugged into oblivion in that English institution as the team swept Moreau's island.

During his interrogation his interviewers' voices had sounded like the voice of God, irrefutable and not to be disobeyed, to his drugged mind. One of them had said, "Quite the survivor, aren't you?"

He'd survived a plane crash, countless days drifting on the Java Sea under intense sun without food or water, Montgomery's care, and the violent, murderous behavior of Moreau's poor, confused creations, but he had survived alone. Sole survivor. Not this time.

"Stella, get out of that! Douglas, I can't believe you brought a plate of food in here with you!"

"You never know when you'll get the chance to eat again. If you don't want it, give Stella some." Douglas looked at Stella with some fondness. He had been suspicious of her at first, having had a very bad experience with a dog-man not that far in the past, but Stella quickly won him over. She would probably do a better job of defending them than Jake would.

"You too? She's going to start begging at the table full time now. What was that?"

"Someone's in the house."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Serafine felt her bones trying to break from the force of her seizures. It provided another pain beside the one ripping her head into five pieces. She could hear people running toward her rock. She knew they would stop soon and fire at her while she couldn't get out.

It took her back to the last time this happened. She had been lying in a burnt-out tenement building in the former Yugoslavia not even sure who she was or what she was doing anymore. She heard the killers coming and knew even in her fragmented state that it wouldn't matter whether they were Serbian or Croatian because either would kill her. So she had stopped thinking, stopped feeling, reached inside, and let the machine take over.

She did this now and felt something switch on. On some dim level she had an awareness of pain and fatigue but it meant nothing. She would move for as long as she could. She came rolling out with her gun ready and shot anything that moved.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The doorknob started to rattle. "Is the door locked?" Jake whispered.

"Yes, but I don't know if that will stop them for too long," Douglas whispered back as he pushed Jake further down into the tub and did the same for himself, keeping only his gunhand and part of his head, enough to see, above the rim. Stella stayed admirably silent.

The door started to buckle with the first kick. The second kick cracked the doorframe. The third took the door down. An armed man in a suit came in, gun raised. He saw Douglas and started to fire.

It was so cliche, but time did seem to slow down. Douglas saw the bullet crawl through the air toward him and saw the cold look on the man's face. If this bullet didn't do the job, he would just keep shooting. Douglas thought of Jake and Stella huddling with him in the tub and realized that he had no choice.

A few months back his own death had stared him in the face. Moreau had been murdered; Montgomery had been murdered; Aissa had been murdered. Now the murderers brought him before King Death. It had huge, sharp teeth and smelled of blood, gasoline, gunpowder, and fire but especially of aging blood. It shoved its face so close up to his that he could feel its hot, gamy breath and its words rumbled through him. "Tell them I am God," Hyena, his death, had said to him.

He actually had a few choices. He could silently cower and die. He could nobly refuse and die. He could acquiesce, tell the crowd of beast-men to follow Hyena as their leader, and live a while longer until one of the beast people lost control of his homicidal impulses toward him. But as he felt the horrible laughter bubble up in him, a fourth option came to mind.

He told Hyena that yes, he was a god, but so were all the others who helped kill Moreau. So whom should the people obey? There could be only one God Number One...

Even half-insane, Douglas knew what would happen. Hyena turned on his comrades, and they all mowed one another down, ending the reign of terror. Hyena chose suicide.

Douglas had not held the gun, but he had been responsible for those deaths, used the beast people as weapons against one another in the hopes of stopping the madness. The choice had been his. Now it was again.

Douglas moved out of the bullet's way and fired. His first shot grazed the man's neck in an explosion of blood. The next went into his chest and took him down. Douglas had just enough time to feel sick and see the look of shock on his face before the next killer came through the door. Then Douglas fired at him.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Mulder sat at the far end of the hole with his back to cold stone. He didn't know how long they'd all been silent, listening to the helicopters overhead and the distant gunfire, but he couldn't do it anymore. "Are they coming, Brian?"

Brian, at the entrance, said, "Not yet." His voice sounded raw. "Sera has led most of them to the other end of the beach."

In the dimness Mulder saw that Krycek looked nervous in a way that seemed to have nothing to do with their pursuers. "What do you think she'll do?" Krycek asked, his voice steady.

"She'll do her best to survive, even if it's only so she'll have a chance to kick your ass. She loves the beach house. She says it reminds her of something she can't remember."

"It reminds me of my family's beach house at Quonochontaug," Mulder said. Krycek stared at him in a really strange way. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Nothing."

Maybe it was the drugs, but Mulder found himself intensely conscious of Krycek. He'd admitted to himself months earlier that he felt some attraction for his former partner but usually not to the extent that his mere presence would make Mulder's mind blank completely out like a snuffed candle. A gun battle raged outside but all he could think of was how close together the tiny space forced them to be.

Krycek had a talent for provoking him. No matter what Mulder did those dark eyes seemed to look at him with amusement and defiance, asking, "Is that the best you can do?" No matter how hard he tried to batter Krycek into submission, that look never changed. That look always brought out the worst in Mulder, even as he wondered why Krycek kept asking for another beating, kept provoking him when he knew where it would lead.

But something was disturbing Krycek now. Mulder found himself following the jittery movements of Krycek's eyes and wondering what upset him so badly.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Krycek asked, echoing Mulder's earlier question.

Mulder didn't know who moved first but suddenly their lips and bodies were pressed together and all thought fled. He felt the unyielding hardness of Krycek's prosthetic hand at his waist, and it excited him. Krycek's real hand was in his hair. Mulder touched Krycek's hair but its shortness prevented him from getting any hold so he stroked the peach fuzz at the base of his neck. His former partner shuddered and moaned against his lips.

The combination of the cold stone and sand at his back and the warm body in his arms tormented him. He wanted...

Krycek pushed himself away, breathing hard. "No, not like this."

"Are you telling me you have scruples?" Mulder gasped as he strained to get closer again.

"You're too easy now, Mulder." Krycek stroked one finger down the side of Mulder's face and shook his head as Mulder leaned into that touch with a junkie's mindless desperation. "This isn't you. When I have you, you're going to react as yourself."

"Now you're saying you love me for my mind?"

Krycek grinned. "Now, I could break one of your arms and you'd get off on it. Besides, this drug gives you an out. Later on you'll tell yourself that you weren't responsible and beat the shit out of me next time you see me." He leaned back a little further. "They knew pain wouldn't work very well on you."

"Were you there? Were they the conspiracy?"

"They figured I might be helpful after my long association with you. The conspiracy? Which one? The one working with the aliens, the one working against the aliens, or the one pretending to be aliens? Which truth? Why do you think the conspiracy has survived so long when there are so many people who break under the pressure of a secret? No one knows everything so no one can tell everything."

"What did I tell them?" Mulder swore to himself that, drug or no, he would remember all this later and sort out truth from misdirection then.

"Not as much as you'd think. You answered whatever they asked you," Krycek smiled, "but you kept distracting them with useless tangents. Most of the time they didn't ask the right questions."

"You didn't suggest any questions?"

"No. Why should I? I needed them for something but I didn't like them. The fact that I'm here now, risking my life, should tell you that. They were going to break your mind and send you back to your apartment with no one the wiser. No one would be surprised that you'd finally lost it. I didn't agree with their intentions and organized this to prevent it."

"And look how well this is going."

Krycek smiled. "You're starting to sound like your old self again."

Brian suddenly spoke, surprising them both. They'd forgotten he was there. "My God, don't you two ever get tired of one another? I've only seen you together twice, and it's getting on my nerves. You snap at and knock one another around, and the only thing different is the order you do it in. Go into couples' therapy already. I'll be here keeping my mind on the important things." Brian's gaze snapped back to the entrance. "I don't hear guns anymore, and someone's coming." He was ready to fire.

The sounds came closer. They heard something that they first thought was talking but soon realizing that it was singing. A woman's clear but hesitant voice softly sang, ""Please, Mister / If you see them / They're missing / Won't you help them find their way / Find their way home / Before the wolves find them first."

"That's Sera. She's singing `Sheep' by Switchblade Symphony," Brian said but looked worried. "But she doesn't sound right."

"It's safe to come out!" Jake yelled. "Everyone's either dead or gone."

Brian, Mulder, and Krycek, especially Krycek, scrambled out as quickly as they could. In the distant they saw what looked to be the tail of a helicopter, burning merrily, partially submerged in the ocean. Seven men in camouflage gear flanked Jake, Stella, and Douglas. Douglas carefully cradled someone in his arms. "Sera!" Brian screamed.

"I'll heal," she croaked. In the moonlight, Brian could see a blood clot in her left eye and blood streaming from her left nostril. Someone had bound her right fore arm in white. It seemed to glow. "You mustn't let Mulder see me like this, not after Scully's cancer scare."

"Brian, we have to get her to a hospital," Douglas said. He looked dazed, sick, and worried all at once. "Her left pupil is dilated when her right one isn't."

At first Brian didn't understand, but then the medical reading he'd done for his genre of writing kicked in. She had a blown pupil, which was usually a sign of a blood clot in the brain or swelling. Neither was good, and both could lead to brain damage or death. He hoped the bleeding from the nostril didn't indicate cerebral hemorrhage.

"No hospitals. What I've got is inoperable. Lobotomy. Paralysis. Death. Those are my options if someone tries to remove the implants. At best, they'll keep me under observation and never let me out. This has happened before. I healed. I can do it again. Even the bullet wound. I just need rest. Trust me." Only her eyes and mouth moved, making the rest of her body seem like an abandoned puppet.

In the distance Brian could hear his guardians telling Mulder about Serafine's prowess, how many she'd taken down. Like a killing machine, they said. They were also talking about Douglas-- "I trust you, Sera."

"The police will be here soon. You'll have to sanitize the house. You may spend the night at the police station telling them about how you were out here and didn't see anything."

"Who will take care of you?"

"I will," Douglas said. "Please, Brian. I don't think we have much time."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX  
_"Sing us a song  
A song to keep us warm  
There's such a chill such a chill_

_You can laugh  
A spineless laugh  
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you_

_Now we are one...."_  
\-- "Exit Music (For a Film)" by Radiohead  
===============================================  
Mulder awoke with a scream wrapped up with someone else in an unfamiliar bed. At first he thought it was Brian but quickly changed his mind. He was touching Krycek's stump. He quickly pulled his hand away. The orange light from the parking lot that broke in through the side of the curtain showed a bit of Krycek's face. The pain and sadness Mulder saw there set him back.

"Doctors had to carve into it again to fit me for a better prosthetic. The butcher work the Russians did--" Krycek couldn't finish the sentence.

Mulder drowned in guilt. He had barely escaped such a fate himself. To think that he'd had a hand in marring that body. "I'm sorry. It's my fault."

"That would mean more if you didn't blame yourself for everything." Krycek smiled a little, painfully. "It was my decision to jump off the truck. I was the one who stayed with that group, thinking I could talk my way out of anything. I even feel asleep in their company." He laughed bitterly. "They showed me. A few long hours under the business end of a hot knife taught me better. I forgot to trust no one. Now I have a reminder to live with... for the rest of my life." His gaze focused on Mulder, making him squirm. "Nightmare?"

"Yeah." The usual one with himself paralyzed and watching helplessly as the light carried his sister away forever. "What time is it? Did I wake you?"

"3 a.m. No, I was already awake, enjoying this while it lasts."

To get away from thinking about Krycek's last statement, Mulder tried to recall the time before he'd collapsed into bed with one of his worst enemies. Corpse disposal, helping Brian make sure the house was gun- and contraband-free, saying goodbye to the nice militiamen who'd helped fight off the attackers, discretely following the cop's car that picked Brian up to take him to the station, dropping Jake and Stella off near the station so they could unobtrusively keep an eye on Brian, checking into the motel. Dark Angel's English patient had done an excellent job of making her look as if she walked into the lobby herself. He'd taken her to a room down the hall.

It bothered Mulder that Brian and Douglas had clustered around her, refusing to let him see her. He knew she had been injured, and from the ashen look on Brian's face it had to be serious. He should be trying to help instead of snuggling with Krycek.

His cheek stung. Krycek had slapped him. "Hello, I'm still here. Where are you, Mulder?"

At least the stinging told him he was clean of whatever his abductors had used on him. "Trying to figure out if this has a future."

Krycek laughed. "Are you kidding? I don't know where or who I'll be even a few days in advance."

"I'm supposed to feel sorry for you that you're a triple-crossing traitor?"

"You're not much better. You're married to your work, always throwing yourself into danger, and attached to Scully at the hip. You don't look like a man who wants a future. You're with me for the danger." Krycek's hand strayed down Mulder's chest, lower and lower, then clutched. "You have to grab happiness wherever you find it."

"That's not happiness you grabbed," Mulder gasped. "I don't even like you."

"Happiness is where you find it. Give up, Mulder. Our cigarette smoking friend specifically chose someone you would find appealing as a partner. Everything from my clothes to my initial deferential attitude was engineered to affect you a certain way. You want me, and you have no choice about it."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"...I've got the ways and means / To New Orleans/ I'm going down by the river where it's warm and green / I'm gonna have a drink / And walk around / I've got a lot to think about." Dark Angel sang softly, and Douglas squeezed her hand again. Her hand still couldn't squeeze back.

She had been singing almost non-stop since Douglas had caught up with her again on the beach. At one point she'd seen his worried look and explained to him that it helped her knit her damaged brain back to together. In song lyrics one phrase always, irrevocably, followed another. Pulling those phrases to the front of her mind helped bridge the gaps, like defragmentizing a computer drive. Also, her mind had linked a number of songs to memories of other times and places.

She had a lovely, clear voice that sometimes hesitated as her brain looked for the next verse. He helped her maintain that voice with cups of lukewarm water. He'd tried cold first but she'd screamed from the pain.

"...Flowers on a razor wire / I know you're here / We are few / And far between / I was thinking about her... skin..."

When she wasn't singing she was apologizing to him for how things had turned out or asking if Brian had come back yet. She asked for Brian once every forty-five minutes. Timing her revealed that she asked at exactly forty-five minutes every time. It made him wonder what else was going on in that battered brain.

He started to worry about Brian himself. Douglas knew he had no knowledge of the American legal system, but seven hours with no end yet seemed a long time to keep someone if the police had no evidence of direct wrongdoing. Brian hadn't even used his gun this evening and really hadn't seen anything.

"...You thought I was a little girl / You thought I was a little mouse / You thought you'd take me by surprise / But now I'm here burning down your house."

He left the light on because it seemed to make her feel better. She lay utterly still, only her eyes and mouth moving, on the bed, her pale skin almost the same white as the sheets and the gauze bandage on her arm. He had felt guilty as he took off her vinyl top, leaving her wearing her black sports bra and silver cross above the waist, but he couldn't see how she could be comfortable in it. Her guns and knives he left on the table. Scars of all sorts marked her arms, burns and bullet holes and claw marks and knife cuts. She said she needed to go in for dermabrasion again soon.

She swore that the bullet hole in her arm would be fine left to itself. She said that having it go clean through meant that no one would have to dig a bullet out. She seemed to be right. As far as he could tell the wound stopped bleeding fifteen minutes after she got it.

"...I'm so tired / Of playing / Playing with this bow and arrow..."

Her right eye was the color of pine needles with a little gold around the pupil. Her left had only a rim of dark green around the blown pupil, but he could swear that the pupil had shrunk a little in the past few hours and that the blood clot on the white was starting to break up and fade a little.

"...If I could kill without guilt or sin / There'd soon be a few less record executives / If I could kill and receive forgiveness..."

Caring for her as she had for him kept his mind off other things. He'd held himself together until they'd reached the room. Then he'd been violently sick in the sink.

"They're Pinky and the Brain / Yes, Pinky and the Brain / One is a genius / The other's insane--" Her eyes flickered to him. "What's wrong, Douglas?"

Even damaged she seemed to have psychic abilities. "I killed two people tonight, and please don't apologize again."

"And it bothers you deeply. Sometimes I almost forget that I don't live a normal life. My own first kill was almost twenty years ago, and anything I could say about killing you wouldn't want to hear. I guess what it comes down to is this: could you see any other way of guaranteeing your and Jake's safety?"

"But that's--"

"Was there any other way that you could see?"

"No."

"This probably won't make you feel better now, because you'll have to make your own peace with it, but you made a sacrifice to keep everyone safe, Douglas. I heard about the things you did, and you thought clearly and well. Jake is lucky he had you with him. I'm lucky to have you with me now."

"This must be a horrible thing to go through alone."

"It is, but that's not what I meant. Not all of it. I love Brian deeply, but aspects of what I am bother him. I don't know if he could nurse me through this as well as you are." She grinned. "I don't know if he could deal with me singing for hours on end either."

"You know you have a lovely voice. But, Angel, I failed someone like you once, failed her horribly. She was different too. There I was telling her wonderful and pure she was until I saw her teeth. They were all sharp. She was regressing slowly but uncontrollably back into the animal she had been. She saw the disgust and horror on my face, and it broke her heart. She was killed soon after that. I could never do that to anyone again."

"You've been sitting in that chair for hours, Douglas. Lie down next to me and try to get some rest."

"I couldn't--"

"Don't worry, I can't move. Your virtue is safe."

"That's not what I mean."

"You're not a person who would take advantage of me."

Douglas settled next to her, still holding her hand. She started to sing again. "In the not-too-distant future / Next Sunday A.D. / There was a guy named Joel / Not too different from you or me / He worked at Gizmonic Institute / Just another face in red jumpsuit / He did a good job cleaning up the place / But his bosses didn't like him so they shot him into space..."

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"Make up your mind, Krycek. First you say I like danger, then you're trying to tell me that your first appearance was designed to make me lust for you. The first time I saw you it was like meeting Clark Kent."

"They miscalculated in their effort to make me seem totally harmless, so I had to improvise. I quickly realized that if I didn't show some fire you would use me as a doormat. They knew that they couldn't replace Scully with another woman because you would rip the poor girl apart. They knew you were also attracted to men and chose me after they studied some of the choices you made while at Oxford."

"They were watching me even then?" Mulder exclaimed even as he tried to move away from Krycek's stroking hand, though he had to admit he didn't try very hard.

"You were Bill Mulder's son and had expressed some interest in the FBI."

"So you didn't mind them pimping you off?"

"It wasn't the worst thing I ever had to do," Krycek whispered against his neck. Mulder shivered as Krycek undid him with his touch and the Truth. "I told you the truth when I said I respected your work. I even liked you when you weren't being an asshole. They wanted you to bond with me; they didn't care how as long as I could use that affection to steer you. It would have worked if you hadn't been so damned observant and if circumstances hadn't forced me to operate so openly." He started to laugh. "I can't undo your damned buttons!"

"What are you talking about?"

"This is only one of the many times I miss the other arm. Have you ever tried to undo a button one-handed? It doesn't work."

"How do you usually do it?"

"My rebel look usually doesn't involve buttons. When it does, I have a button holer, a loop with a handle, to help me. I'm not getting out of bed to get it."

"Can't you just bite them off?" Mulder asked, deeply sarcastic.

"I'm being polite and sensitive."

Mulder started to unbutton his shirt without really thinking about it. "Some seducer you are."

Krycek grinned. "I'm getting you to unbutton your shirt, aren't I?"

"You bastard," Mulder snarled but he continued to take his shirt off. He understood what Krycek intended now. There would be no mind-erasing rush of passion that that would let Mulder deny his complicity. Krycek did a gradual invasion, letting Mulder acquiesce to and decide that he liked each touch before moving on, until Mulder stood at the edge of the precipice unable to turn back. He realized that he didn't want to say no, that he enjoyed all the effort Krycek was going to. When he had collapsed onto the bed mostly dressed some part of his mind knew even then that he wouldn't end the night that way.

His mind screamed in protest but his body and soul appreciated his final rueful acknowledgement of what had always been going on. His mind, always bound in the tragedies and disappointments of the past, had nothing to do with what he wanted tonight. He didn't let himself think about what he was doing or about what anyone, like Scully or Serafine, would say about it. Tonight he wanted no past or future, just a very pleasurable now.

Krycek seemed to sense the shift. "Why don't you do something more useful with that mouth?"

Mulder laughed. "That sounds like one of my lines."

"Yeah, but I don't have your full, sulky lips... That's nice," Krycek said with a sigh as Mulder nipped at his neck. "You made overtures to me too, you know."

"The hell I did," Mulder muttered as he took Krycek's T-shirt off. He stared, then took a matched set of nipple rings in his fingers and pulled gently. The metal had been warmed from its contact with Krycek's flesh. "What are these, handles?"

"That depends on your sense of originality, doesn't it? Bet you never realized `Clark Kent' wore these under his cheap suit. You know I like it a bit rough. I doubt you learned your dry-humping-the-suspect-against-the-phone-bank technique at the academy."

"I thought I was beating the shit out of you, and you were getting off on it. That explains a lot." He took a ring and nipple in his mouth and sucked. Krycek hummed happily under his breath and pulled him closer. Again, Mulder felt the collaborative nature of what they were doing. With his one arm, Krycek would have difficulty stopping him from leaving if Mulder decided to go.

Apparently Krycek could talk no matter what was going on. Only a slight breathy quality to his voice gave a hint. Mulder imagined that such a talent would be useful in the circles Krycek moved in. "Admit it; you got off on it too. That was one instance. Another branded the sight of you soaking wet in a skimpy red Speedo into my brain forever."

"It's good to be appreciated," Mulder said even as he wondered about his own motives then. Had he really flaunted himself in front of Krycek? He didn't know anymore. Some psychologist he was.

As they kissed deeply, Mulder's mind still kept working, analyzing the flavor of Krycek's mouth. Spicy and a little bit smoky. Mulder's lips roved over a face only his fists had had any contact with previously. Remembering the way Krcyek had reacted to it earlier, Mulder stroked the buzz cut peach fuzz at the nape of his former partner's neck and felt a surge of satisfaction and power as Krycek bucked. Krycek's hand roamed everywhere, leaving heat and sensitized nerves in its wake, and pressed him so close that every movement created friction.

"Aren't you going to take my pants off? It's getting uncomfortable in here," Mulder gasped.

Krycek grinned at him malevolently. "You have hands. If they're not out of the way by the time I kiss my way down, you're out of luck."

Mulder quickly got to work, but the hot mouth traveling along his chest kept distracting him. He wanted to protest the unfairness but his voice didn't work. He still claimed the fast-strip title and was free and clear by the time Krycek got there. Krycek looked up at him with that same grin and put two of his own fingers in his mouth. At first, the gesture confused Mulder until he watched Krycek do to those fingers what Mulder hoped he intended to do to him. He almost came right there. Nothing like a mind fuck to go along with the rest of it... The fingers exited Krycek's mouth with a wet pop.

Krycek attended to Mulder's dick like it was a candy cane with assorted licking, nibbling, and sucking, changing his approach just as Mulder started to expect anything. He wanted to yell at Krycek to get on with it before he died of anticipation, but he couldn't do anything other than whimper and gasp.

As all this was going on, Mulder felt a hand slide over his buttocks and down. When the first finger entered Mulder felt some pain until it hit the magic spot that made him see stars. Then the other finger came to visit too, and as they started to stroke in and out, Krycek's mouth clamped down and started a synchronized rhythm. The sensations from the two-pronged attack made him scream, and he exploded into Krycek's mouth not long after that.

Krycek continued to suck like a baby happy with its bottle until Mulder went completely limp. When he withdrew his mouth and fingers Mulder felt so strangely bereft. When Krycek came up and kissed him, Mulder tasted himself on the swollen lips.

"Alex..."

"No, it's either Alex and Fox or Mulder and Krycek. No in-betweens," Krycek whispered, breathing hard.

Mulder asked himself if he was really going to do this. The answer was yes. "Alex, I--I want you inside me."

Alex's eyes searched his, seeming to look into the dustiest corners of his soul, then smiled. "If you really want it, Fox, who am I to say no?"

When Fox pulled down Alex's jeans, he was initially surprised to see that they had an elastic waistband, no zipper or buttons. The jeans had been designed to look like it had a fly. Then he remembered their earlier discussion. He had actually forgotten about Alex's arm for a while. He felt a guilty surge of disappointment that he would never experience what the very talented Alex could do with two hands. The briefs came next. Fox threw both to the foot of the bed.

Alex rolled him onto his back and positioned his legs. "I--I want you to try to keep your eyes open. I want that legendary Mulder focus on me." He entered with slow strokes that made the anticipation and pleasure/pain excruciating and resisted all of Fox's efforts to speed up the process. He gradually sped up, and Fox wrapped himself around Alex and lost himself in the feeling. He moved with Alex, and they worked together.

Some far-distant part of his mind knew that the world, pain, secrets, and betrayals would still be waiting for him when he left this bed, but for now he looked into Alex's eyes and saw the same pleasure and shared purpose as he felt. He almost felt like he looked straight into the man's heart. Alex had lied before and would lie to him again, but he wasn't lying now. Not about this. For now everything felt so good, and he knew a sense of peace.

They came one after the other in an explosion of sound and sensation and phased out from exhaustion, from their exertions and the previous events of the night, before they could even disentangle themselves. As Fox drifted into a deep, restful sleep, he still smiled.

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"Some say the end is near/ Some say Armageddon is coming soon..."

Douglas spent a restless night drifting in and out of consciousness, too worried about Angel and too wired to sleep. Sometimes her eyes were closed and sometimes not, but she never stopped singing.

At 5 a.m. her fingers suddenly tightened around his. She rolled over to face him with a huge blinding smile and said, "Thank you," before she slid into sleep. Smiling himself, he soon followed her. He had broken his sole survivor curse.

***********To Be Concluded In DEAD TIME III************


End file.
